Best Breast Forward (A-Cup)

Who's flat and happy? A sizable portion of the young Hollywood A-list is also an A-cup. Here's just a sampling of those born to be boyish and not about to change it (we think).


(Go ahead, guess which breasts go with which celebrity; scroll for hints*.)

A lot of fuss was recently kicked up when Keira Knightley (23) recently refused to have her mammaries digitally enhanced in publicity stills for her upcoming film "The Duchess."

But Knightley plays both sides. For the 2004 film promotion of "King Arthur" she was unaltered as the leather-clad Guinevere – but only in Great Britain. For the U.S. audience the studio supersized her natural A-cup chest to a boomy C-cup (the actual film must have been a twin disappointment.)

Knightley has previously spoken out in defense of photoshopping celebrities into an altered state by rationalizing that actresses are in the fiction business – and just as movies are all about fiction, so are posters and magazine pictures. "Films particularly deal with fantasy," she said.

The trend to be thin and bone in Hollywood dictates that most young starlets will have very little breast tissue – unless they undergo surgical augmentation. No amount of tape will make cleavage out of 32-AA. A tight corset and "bosom makeup" will hint at it, though.

There are very practical up-sides to being less well-endowed. Diane Keaton was able to appear attractively nude at 57 (albeit with a LOT of body makeup) in the 2003 "Something's Gotta Give." At the same age the lovely Scarlett Johansson's body is going to look like Kathy Bates in "About Schmidt." Only the slight (and childless) age gracefully.


Of course if one gets pregnant or eats, things get bigger: breast tissue is mostly fat. Ask Renee Zellweger.

But the truth is, flat-chested women are easier to dress than their DD sisters as any designer will confirm. There's a reason the catwalk models are rail thin adolescents. A very busty woman will end up looking heavy in anything that isn't skin-tight. Just try putting Pamela Anderson into a double- breasted jacket or high neckline!

There is probably never going to be a celebrity who will trade on a AA size bust the way Dolly Parton and Anderson have built a career on their twin peaks. But there is definitely room in Hollywood for big talent with small breasts.

Music from the show:

My Boobs Are Ok-Lene Alexandra

My Humps-Black Eyed Peas



*and about those breasts....

Hair, Give Me a Head of Hair

Oh, let us count the 50 ways to lose your hair. There's androgenetic alopecia (pattern baldness), traction alopecia (evil minded hairdressers), telogen effluvium (physiological trauma like meds, chemo, stress, illness), and alopecia areata (an autoimmune disease) just to name the top ones.

Male and female pattern baldness is based on genetic background (thanks, Mom and Dad) and refers to progressive loss in predictable stages over predictable areas of the scalp. For men it can start in late puberty and peaks about age 40; for women the onset is at menopause. It accounts for about 95% of all pattern hair loss in both men and women. Mid-frontal hair loss increases with longevity; by age 80 over half of all women and 73% of men are affected. If you are wondering about the other stats, the average head of hair contains 100,000 hair follicles, while each follicle can sprout about 20 individual hairs. A healthy head of hair might lose 100 strands a day. Length comes 1.25cm a month.

There's a reason we associate bald-headed men with sexiness. In the primate world frontal balding conveys male status and maturity. A powerful sex hormone (DHT, the metabolite of testosterone) triggers the hair loss through folicular miniaturization and it takes a certain amount of confidence and bravado to just shave off what's left. Think Samuel Jackson, Patrick Stewart, Telly Savalas, Sean Connery, Steve McQueen, Yul Brynner, Vin Diesel, Ben Kingsley, Bruce Willis, Andre Agassi. Not a wimp among them.

Some clinical treatments for male pattern baldness exist, primarily finasteride (Rx Propecia) and topically applied monoxidil (OTC Rogaine). It works for most, but only if taken daily for eternity. The balding Olympic skeleton slider Zach Lund dropped his drawers and tested positive for fenasteride, netting a yearlong suspension and missing the 2006 games in Turin, Italy. In 2004 it had been added to the list of banned drugs in international sports because in tests it masks detection of cheater-drugs like the steroid nandrolone.

Hair replacement systems are widespread. Of course, there's always the wig, though we dignify it for men with a more elegant word: toupee (from the French toupet meaning hair tuft). These small wigs or hair pieces have been used since ancient times. The earliest known one was found in a tomb in Egypt circa 3200 BC. Julius Caesar wore one. True to form, only dead Hollywood men admit to wearing them: Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, George Burns, Bing Crosby, Bobby Darin, Fred MacMurray, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne.

"I'm amazed by how often people ask me whether or not I wear a hairpiece, a wig, or a rug, as it is affectionately known."

And there are newer alternatives. Lord Xenu can't grow hair on his head, but a hairweave can approximate it for John Travolta. In 'netting' a thin, breathable net (similar to illusion tulle) is interwoven with the existing hair and supplemented with extensions. Even without the extreme closeup, his graying sideburns give it away. Other technologies include bonding, tracking, fusion, clip ons. Let's just say HairClub for Men has come a long way in the last 30 years.

Any number of female stars have experimented with these alternative methods for adding fullness and length to existing hair. Here's a whole webpage devoted to Paris Hilton's fake hair escapades! Sometimes, the look is less than successful, as displayed here on Britney Spear's head.

The permanent solutions involve cosmetic transplant of hair from one part of the scalp to another (here's a good journal article). The most up-to-date involves a surgical office procedure that harvest hair from the back or sides where it is thick and transplanting it in the thinning front regions. Using a local anesthetic, mini grafts of just a few or single follicles are used in place of the 'doll plug' punch grafts of yore. Four or more sessions, three months apart are usually required. Rob Schneider exhibited classic male pattern baldness pre-2005: hair receding from the lateral sides of his forehead and a thinning patch on the vertex (top). He's had some really nice hair transplant work. Less skillful is the work Ben Affleck has had done.

The unintended loss of one's locks is generally more disturbing for women than men. Sudden diffuse hair loss, telogen effluvium, is caused by an interruption in the normal hair growth cycle. A greater than normal number of hair folicles enter the rest stage (telogen) at all once, instead of in sequence. It takes another 3 months for the affected folicles to move into the growth state (anagen). It's at this point that the new hairs force out the old hairs and profuse shedding occurs. It has a myriad of traumatic causes: chemotherapy, childbirth, puberty, major surgery, chronic illness, severe emotional or physical stress. Usually the mechanism is a temporary disruption of hormonal balance.

Taking away a woman's hair can be a form of punishment. In ancient Greece it signified an enslaved woman. In France during WWII it marked collaboration with the Nazis. Even today it's used in US prisons. Then there are the women who chose to go bald. Sigourney Weaver may have been first with Alien 3. Demi Moore took it all off for G. I. Jane as did Natalie Portman for V for Vendetta. While praised for her unique voice and original songs, Sinead O'Connor is also noted for her expression of anger. When Britney Spears shaved her head, it triggered institutionalization in a treatment center.

Most Americans see a healthy bald woman and assume she’s a lesbian, radical feminist, political extremist or understudy for an alien role ala Star Trek. The sight of a woman’s bare scalp still makes society’s hair stand on end.

Beauty and sexuality remain tied to a woman’s hair. Natalie Portman said post V haircut: "It was kind of wonderful to throw vanity away for a bit."


Here are those tunes you heard on the broadcast:






Hear Anne live on the Kevyn Burger show 10:00 to 11:00am Thursdays featuring Knifestyles of the Rich & Famous.

Darker Side of Tanning

Here's the myth: it is overexposure, or sunburn, that might be the cause for any of the negative things you read about sunlight and health. Overexposure and sunburn are not synonymous! In reality, tanning is an art that converts animal skins into leather. Exposure to UV light turns on the melanocyte color producing cells as a response to injury to the epidermis. This is the opposite of vitiligo, the skin disease Michael Jackson suffers from, in which those same cells lose the ability to produce pigment of any kind.

Historically, a tanned body belonged to the working classes who labored out-of-doors, while fashionable pale skin belonged exclusively to the upper classes and aristocracy. For many centuries and well into the nineteenth, a whitening agent for the face was used, composed of carbonate, hydroxide, and lead oxide. Arsenic was commonly employed starting in the mid-tenth century. It brings a whole new meaning to the idiom "suffering for beauty."

Who single-handedly changed this? Designer Coco Chanel inadvertently gave the Paris fashion world the tan after cruising from Paris to Cannes on the second Duke of Westminster's yacht early in the 20s. (She liked his clothes.) The suntan had arrived as the symbol of wealth and leisure. A tan in the winter meant the bearer had enough money and status to vacation in an exotic, warm climate.

The search for the perfect tan has led to basking in the sun, wipe-ons pioneered by Coppertone, tanning beds, and now spray-on airbrushed tans. The first greased Little Miss Coppertone was not Jodie Foster, but rather a 3-year-old girl in pigtails named Cheri Brand, daughter of the Bronxville illustrator who sketched the original 1959 ad campaign: Don't be a Paleface!

And Hollywood jumped in, too, glamorizing a tan with technicolor film in the late 30s. The perennial tanning idol of the screen was immortalized by Doonesbury's Zonker and his entry into the George Hamilton Cocoa Butter Open. The current rage for Paris Hilton-types is the sunless tan, again pioneered by our orange friends at Coppertone. DHA (dihydroxyacetone) is a chemical refined from sugar cane which temporarily colors the skin by reacting with the keratin protein found in the top layer. DHA is considered completely safe, but it gives no protection from sun damage: it doesn't stop UV light.

Speaking of ultraviolet light– both UVA and UVB rays are harmful to the skin. Tanning beds employ UVA radiation, which actually penetrates deeper into the skin than UVB. The research unequivocally points to UV exposure as the source of common skin cancers. The rate is rising by leaps and bounds. At highest risk are those with light eyes/skin/hair or a family history of skin cancer, but anyone can move into the high risk category just by tanning. Basal cell (affecting deepest layer of the epidermis) and squamous cell (middle layer of epidermis) carcinomas are the most common of all cancers. Malignant melanoma, though less common, is the most dangerous, the leading cause of skin disease death. If you get one, you will get more.

In the end, tanning early on makes for a hagged-out look later in life: sagging skin, deep wrinkles, uneven tone, broken blood vessels, and age spots (macules and solar lentigines). Take a good look at the hands, decollete, and neck of any tanned woman over 40. It isn't pretty up close. Plastic surgeons delicately refer to it as "photoaging."

Lest you think baking in the sun is done and over, just think of how many Hollywood stars are photographed on the beach in bikinis. Do you think they've got on their SPF 40?

Tanning the old-fashioned way invites paparazzi. It's easy to find popular stars on the internet wearing not much more than their sunglasses: Jennifer Aniston, Sharon Stone, Elizabeth Hurley, Natalie Portman, Janet Jackson, etc. (But you never did really think of them as role models, now did you?)

Children and adolescents are thought to be the most vulnerable because their skin cells are dividing and changing more rapidly than those of an adult. One blistering sunburn in childhood more than doubles a person's lifetime chances of developing a melanoma. And, as the ozone layer thins, exposure to natural UV radiation exponentially increases. So learn to love your sunscreen.

And all you prom kids? Go ahead, slap on a tan and have fun– just don't do it via a tanning booth.



Hear Anne live on the Kevyn Burger show 11:00 to noon every Thursday featuring Knifestyles of the Rich & Famous.